Citizen Reader

Posted on Wednesday 13th November 2013

The fun of sharing reading with strangers and the opportunity to explore ideas in public are among the pleasures that participants derive from mass reading events such as Richard and Judy’s Book Club and ‘Liverpool Reads’. The promise of belonging to some kind of community - however briefly - is an especially powerful attraction for many readers.

Drawing upon examples of large-scale reading events from the UK and North America, Dr Danielle Fuller examines how and why contemporary readers come together to share reading as ‘citizen readers'. This talk was given as part of Book to the Future - the University of Birmingham's first festival of the written and spoken word.